


We All Live In The Uncanny Valley

by bessemerprocess



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Accidental Revival, F/M, LEGO Mindstorm, M/M, Other, Sanctuary Santa, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-20
Updated: 2011-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-27 15:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate's always the one who can see humanity in a person, no matter what they look like or how they got that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Live In The Uncanny Valley

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lferion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lferion/gifts).



“I should be the one to talk to him,” Kate says, and waits for the protests to erupt.

She gets silence. Magnus looks at Tesla and they do their Five telepathy-via-eye-contact thing. Kate hasn’t figured out how to translate that yet, but it doesn’t matter because it’s Declan who speaks.

“Kate, are you sure?” She’s not sure if Declan wants to protect her or if he wants to be the one to do the talking, but either way its a bad idea.

“Am I sure that I want to talk to the very angry and possibly slightly mad copy of my boyfriend’s ex who can’t come to grips with being a computer program because he still thinks the telegraph was a nifty invention?” Kate asks. She almost feels bad when Declan looks away.

“I rather think ‘nifty’ has never been a part of James’ vocabulary,” Tesla points out.

At which point Kate possibly snaps, just a little bit. “Says the man who accidentally trapped a copy of one of his best friends on futuristic flash drive and forgot about him for five years.”

“I didn’t know he’d be awake. Also, I didn’t know he’d be him,” Tesla complains. He takes a step back when Kate advances on him. “On the other hand, I see the merit of your argument.”

“Kate is correct. In the state that James is currently in, neither Nikola nor Declan would seem to be the best candidate, and he already refused to speak with me,” Magnus says. Kate knows its hurting her that the James-copy is in such obvious distress and there is no easy way to fix it. “I’ll go and see how Henry is doing coming up with finding some more dignified way for James to interact with the world. Nikola come with me,” Magnus says when it looks like Tesla isn’t about to follow her out of the room.

Kate hopes that after the check-in with Henry, Tesla and Magnus will take a tour of the wine cellars. They could both do with a drink.

Declan sighs beside her. “I’ll wait, if that’s okay with you.”

“It’ll be fine. He’s already doing better now that Henry’s given him a way to interact with the world,” Kate says, and kisses him quickly before slipping into the lab.

Henry is a genius, Kate’s always known that, but he’d had limited resources and the smallest of time frames. So the James-copy is hooked into a LEGO mindstorm robot with a tiny holo-project strapped to the top. The effect is very Obi-Wan’s message to Princess Leia, if R2D2 was only a foot tall and Obi-Wan was lashing out after five years trapped in his own mind.

“Where is Tesla?” the tiny projection growls. Or tries to, the speech synthesizer software is Henry’s basic package--better than the standard Microsoft attempt, but not up to much emotional resonance. James-copy’s crossed arms and scowl tell her what the synthesizer’s can’t.

“He feels really bad about the whole thing, Dr. Watson. He apologizes and he’s helping Henry build you a better... interface.”

“That vampire? Never. Nikola’s more upset he can’t figure out a way to use this to take over the world.”

“He’s been better about that lately. I think it has hit him pretty hard that he and Helen are the only two of you left,” Kate says. She hadn't exactly meant to tell him that, it just slipped out.

“How did John die? How did I die? No, wait, don’t tell me. I don’t think I can know that right now.” The projection turns his back on her and the robot turns away before pacing in front of the lab bench. Henry’s hoping that giving the James-copy back it’s senses--well, everything but smell, Henry didn’t have a way to cobble that together quickly enough--will allow his mind to reorganize itself, but he told Magnus and Tesla that he might not be quite the same. Neither he nor Tesla knows exactly how the flash drive works, though they’re both pretty certain it came from Hollow Earth. What exactly it copied from James Watson no one is really sure.

Kate gives the James-copy his space. The whole situation must be overwhelming for him. It takes a while, but the robot eventually returns to where she is sitting on the floor and says, “Did you know me? Before, I mean.”

“No. I’d heard of you, but I’ve only been here two years,” she says, not really willing to go into the circumstances of her arrival.

The projection nods. “I thought as much. Now, before when I was... disturbed, Helen said there was a mystery?”

Progress, Kate thinks. “The London Sanctuary has locked itself down. Declan’s Head of House codes don’t work, Magnus’ codes don’t work and neither Tesla nor Henry were able to hack their way in. Tesla thought that the security protocols were looking for your brainwaves. That’s why he went looking for you in the first place.”

“Wretched creature,” the robot starts stalking the room again. "Left me in the dark for an eternity. Didn’t even come by to say hello for Christmas. Did you know I helped faked his death? Or that I was the one who bought off half the people who wanted to kill him over the years? That was incredibly stupid of me. Should have killed him myself and collected the bounty money,” James rants as his treads rumbles across the floor.

“Also, needing my brain waves doesn’t really consist of a mystery. At least, not for me,” James continues.

“They didn’t work.” Tesla had grabbed the patterns and tried them before any of them had even been aware that James Watson’s entire personality had been copied to the drive. Nothing had happened, or at least, not in London. When the James-copy had realized that he was no longer hallucinating digital sheep he had lashed out through every computer system he could reach. It was all Henry and Tesla could do to keep him from destroying the Sanctuary.

Kate’s pretty grateful that Watson never progressed beyond the telegraph, because if it had been Tesla on that drive, the entire world would be on fire right now.

“If my brain waves didn’t work, then why hasn’t Nikola decommissioned me yet? I was obviously dangerous when I first woke up."

“Well, A. neither Henry nor Declan would let him do that to you, and B. Magnus thought if your brainwaves didn’t do the trick, maybe your brain could. You are Sherlock Holmes after all,” Kate says with a shrug.

“And afterwards?”

Kate’s not one for seeing humanity in every piece of machinery like Henry does, but the little robot manages to look afraid and dejected at the same time, all without having any real facial features. It's sort of impressive.

“Up to you. No one is going to force you back into the dark. Henry will build you whatever kind of body you want and then, you get a second chance, I guess,” she says.

“Ah. You’re involved with Mr. MacRae, then?” the James-copy pronounces.

Kate flushes, but answers anyway. “I am.” There’s no point in lying to James Watson after all. She may have never met him in the flesh, but she’s heard enough stories. How he and Magnus won wars, how he and Tesla invented fabulous things, how Declan learned to run a Sanctuary from him and so much more, how he taught Henry to guess what his Christmas presents were before they were unwrapped, how he’d saved the world while Will watched.

“Don’t worry. Being strapped to a machine is one thing, being a machine is a completely different thing.”

Kate finds herself saying, “You don’t know that. Declan still loves you.” This may actually win the weirdest conversation she’s ever had.

“He loved James Watson.”

“And how aren’t you James Watson?”

“Well, the tiny metal robot I’m currently inhabiting seems to suggest that I’m not currently in any way human,” James says.

“So?”

“Your response is ‘so?’ I had heard that the American education system was failing apart, but really,” James huffs.

“I work with a werewolf, a Sasquatch, a vampire and an immortal, and you think being a robot means you can’t be a human?” Kate asks. “Being human has nothing to do with your circulatory system or how you look, and you of all people should know that.”

“I was an accident. I am dead and buried somewhere.”

“And you think I wasn’t an accident? As for the dead and buried part, I’ll give you that. But I still think it just means you get another chance. Maybe try something new, maybe not. Though, if I could talk you into trying to help us unlock the London Sanctuary before you go and meditate on your future, I think everyone would really appreciate it,” Kate says.

“Already fixed. I sent the correct response when I decided not to kill Nikola. He was partially right, though you should never tell him that. He did need my brainwaves, of a sort. I needed to be thinking a particular thing. A back up protocol set up decades ago. I had rather forgotten about it,” The robot manages to look abashed, and Kate deflates a bit.

“That’s it? Three weeks of lock down, worrying that people were going to starve to death and all you had to do was think the magic word?”

“These things happen.”

Kate sighs. “Here more than anywhere else.”

“More true than you know, my dear. Now, let’s go see about that body Henry has promised, and perhaps speak with Declan, now that I am more in control of my faculties,” James says.

Kate must let something show on her face, as she stands to accompany James to Henry’s lab.

“Oh my dear, no. You just saved my life and my sanity. I don’t intend to steal Declan from you. Though perhaps if you were amenable to sharing, Henry could work something out for us.”

Kate could swear that the robot was smirking.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Sanctuary Santa for Lferion. Also, inspired by Anne McCaffrey, who created such an important part of my childhood.


End file.
